Tag Archives: gene wilder

A few weeks ago, I was having a crappy day and my friend, Vanessa, shared a short video clip with me. I can always count on her to make me laugh with any number of crazy viral videos circling the globe. This one was easily among the best.

If you watch John Oliver, you’ve probably already seen it. It’s called … quite simply … Fuck You, 2016. (PLEASE don’t play it in front of your kids.)

You can’t watch it without laughing. And thinking of your own misfortunes of the past year. She and I have traded the tagline and meme’d a million little things in our lives in the past few weeks.

Like this …

Or this ….

Or even this.

The circus freak sideshow of the election aside, 2016 really was a year for the shit-stained books, wasn’t it? Racially-provoked violence all over the country the likes of which we haven’t seen in decades; the horrific, alligator incident at Disney World (I can still barely speak of it); Harambe, the slain gorilla; one of the deadliest shootings in U.S. history in Orlando; Gatlinburg and the Smoky Mountains going up in flames; the Bastille attack in Nice, France; the catastrophic flooding in my Katrina-adopted hometown of Baton Rouge … the list goes unmercifully on and on.

Celebrity deaths included … to name only a few … David Bowie, Prince, Alan Rickmann, Gene Wilder, Muhammad Ali, Harper Lee, Garry Shandling, Florence Henderson, Alan Thicke, Natalie Cole, George Michael, Carrie Fisher and Pat Harrington, Jr. from One Day at a Time.

As far as I’m concerned, 2016 can get bent.

And, while I certainly can’t compete with the world’s problems, it wasn’t a stellar year for me either. In addition to my car getting nailed (twice) and a few other calamities about which I’m not allowed to write here, I celebrated my birthday last summer by catching my hair on fire. Fuck you, trick candle company.

Yep. Today is my birthday. Which means I actually wrote this post a few days ago in anticipation of how busy I’d be taking calls and accepting telegrams and flowers all day long on June 11. (Telegrams?!!? How the hell old AM I?)

Anyway, I thought it would be interesting to take a look at all the celebs and famous names who share my big day with me. As with every other day of the year, there are a ton of people born that day. However, there are very few that I’ve actually heard of. And thus, a much shorter version of my original list was born entitled …

… plus (bonus!) one word I associate with each of them.

Adrienne Barbeau – Maude

Christina Crawford – hangers

Jacques Cousteau – fish

Peter Dinklage – Elf

Hugh Laurie – House

Vince Lombardi – trophy

Shia LeBeouf – punk

Joe Montana – football

Richard Strauss – music

Gene Wilder – Frankenstein

Geez. Not a big day for famous baby birthing. Then again, Labor Day has never really been much of a romantic holiday. (To those of you scratching your heads, do the math.)

June is Blog Post by Numbers Month. Wanna play with Mel and me? Just write a “listy-type” post with a number in the title (ex. FOUR Reasons I Love Mayonnaise, SIX Things You Can Do With A Paper Clip). Then link back to us and tweet us about it so we can include you on June 30th in our final list: (Number-Yet-To-Be-Determined) Great Bloggers Who Played the Blog Post by Numbers Game!

Writer’s Note … I had the post below written and ready to go for today, but then I woke up to the most amazing surprise. Two of my best friends out there wrote their posts today about ME! Stupid, boring, pain in the ass me. And I honestly could not be more flattered. My family wasn’t even awake yet and I was already smiling from ear to ear. So, you know, please read my stupid post but, even more so, please take a look at the posts of two of the sweetest people I know. And then keep on reading them. They’re WAY funnier than me anyway. Thanks, you guys!

* * * * * * * * * *

Dear ODNT Family,

Is it appropriate for me to write something about my own birthday? It feels weird doing it … but it feels even weirder ignoring it. So …

Happy Birthday to Me!

Today is my birthday. June 11. There’s actually a lot of great people born in June along with me. So, I picked 30 of them to honor today, listing each one on his or her actual birthday (i.e., 1 = June 1st and so on). I also listed my reasons for honoring them, even when those reasons sounded a little off the wall.

So, without further ado, I give you …

The 30 People Who Can Share My Birthday Crown

1 – Marilyn Monroe Because she’s a not-stick-thin hottie and standing next to her might make me look skinny.

2 – Jerry Mathers Because he had to go by the name ‘Beaver’ all those years.

3 – Suzi Quatro Because I’m still copying Leather Tuscadero’s hair. Although I could never master the snapping thing.

4 – Russell Brand Because his voice alone cracks me up. Forgive me?

5 – Kenny G Because including Kenny G on this list is simply hilarious to me.

6 – Robert Englund Because, without him, we might not have our June 9th honoree. Plus I was too scared to leave him out.

9 – Johnny Depp Because … well, duh. Have you been paying attention at all?

10 – Ruth DeBlanc Because she’s my grandmother, she’s awesome and she would have been 100 years old yesterday.

11 – Gene WilderBecause of …“Blucher!”

12 – Anne Frank Because she’s incredible and helped to get me reading as a kid.

13 – Paul Lynde Because I watched Uncle Arthur on Bewitched every afternoon. And because he somehow, amazingly, never came out of the closet.

14 – Boy George Because I dressed up as that man more times than I care to admit. And even won a contest once.

15 – Neil Patrick Harris Because he’s a fellow theater junkie. And because he plays a lothario on How I Met Your Mother.

16 – Laurie Metcalf Because Jackie was always way funnier than Roseanne.

17 – Barry Manilow Because he is music and he writes the songs (that make the whole world sing).

18 – Paul McCartney Because he’s Paul freakin’ McCartney. Seriously?

19 – Mia Sara Because I thought she was cool as Sloane Peterson. What ever happened to her?

20 – John Taylor Because of Duran Duran. And this mention is my shout out to all five of them.

21 –Leo Sayer Because he wrote some of the super groovy tunes I played in my early guitar days.

22 – Cyndi Lauper Because I met her once when she was with her son and she seemed like a really good mom.

23 – Bob Fosse Because of … Jazz Hands!

24 –Michele Lee Because she was the first person I ever saw who spelled her name the same way I do.

25 – Mike Myers Because of So I Married An Axe Murderer. Rent it.

26 – Jeff DeBlanc – Because he’s my grandfather and the only one here giving my grandmother a run for her money.

27 – Captain Kangaroo Because he gave me something to watch on TV when I was a kid. BEFORE cable.

28 – Mel Brooks Because of Young Frankenstein, Blazing Saddles & The Producers.

29 – Bret McKenzie Because of Jenny and everything he and Jemaine do in Flight of the Conchords.

30 – Ken Olin Because I so loved Thirtysomething back in the day.

Assembling this list was no small task but I had fun doing it. There were a few hard choices to make on some of the days and I was forced to leave out a number of pretty choice people. But I could only pick one person per day. Without rules, THERE WOULD BE ANARCHY… or maybe just too long of a post.

Anyway, I need to go celebrate my birthday. When I was nine, my family surprised me with tickets to see Donny & Marie live in concert. Who knows what this year will bring? Honestly, all I’m really looking for is a stress-free day where everyone is happy and my face hurts from so much smiling. And cheese.